My friend Ibra Ake interviewed me for his website Models and Rappers. I realize I am neither a model or a rapper, but I guess since I take photos of models and rappers that I am somehow relevant to his blog. I met Ibra at a hotel party thrown by comedian/rapper Donald Glover. Ibra is Donald’s friend/photographer/designer and Donald had showed Ibra my work. Ibra was psyched on my photography, which normally makes me uncomfortable but Ibra is a fantastic photographer himself so it was great to meet him. Anyway, Ibra started this site a few months ago and has been interviewing a ton of people so clearly you should check his site out, but more importantly you should check out his interview with me, because I am awesome.

Ibra came over and he asked me about my favorite clients, best advice I had received and we talked about the positives and negatives of shooting naked girls. I showed Ibra my infamous nude Polaroid collection and pulled out some prints for him to look through. Ibra turned the whole thing into a pretty awesome interview with me. I sent him a bunch of random photos that I had high res shots of laying around so they aren’t exactly the most relevant images to the interview, but there is some new shots that no one has ever seen before in there as well.

So check out the NSFW video below and read Ibra’s actual post because it has a nice write up to go along with it. I particularly like this part:

“Igor makes it a point to take pictures everywhere, whether he’s getting paid to or not. After looking through the massive collection of outrageous images he keeps at his apartment, I realized he’s on to something: The more you shoot, the more likely you are to get interesting shots. It’s kind of obvious, but it’s a good reminder for all aspiring photographers.”

I only really have three points of advice for anyone who wants to be a photographer. Shoot photos all the time, develop a personal style and don’t work for free. I will be billing you for that. Thank you and goodnight.

One of the highlights of my photo career is in little red boxes all over New York City right now. After close to four years of working for the web version of the Village Voice I finally got to shoot a print cover, and not just any cover, I got to shoot Lloyd Kaufman. If you don’t know, Lloyd Kaufman is the co-founder of Troma Studios the world’s longest running independent film studio in the world. Lloyd and his crew have been making and distributing some of the worst best films known to man. When I was 14 or 15 a friend who worked at a video store introduced me to the sick world of Troma and I have been hooked ever since. Lloyd Kaufman is one of my heroes and to be able to shoot him for my first Voice cover is a huge honor.

The story was written by my juggalo anthropologist partner in crime Camille Dodero. We traveled to the Gathering of the Juggalos, not once, but twice and we will be forever bonded in Faygo.  I was so psyched she brought me along on her Tromatic journey. You need to read her article on Lloyd!

When the Voice’s photo editor started talking to me about the shoot all I could think about was putting Lloyd in a tutu and having him pose as the Toxic Avenger. Toxie, as he is lovingly called, was the first Troma superhero and The Toxic Avenger was Troma’s first big hit in 1984 and pretty much the basis for everything that has come since. Toxie fights crime with a broom dressed in a tutu and luckily for me the 66 year old Lloyd was ready to take off his pants and put on the pink skirt. The issue was due to come out on July 4th and the original poster for the Toxic Avenger featured Toxie standing in front of an American flag. Troma already had a green screen set up in their office so we just remade the poster with Lloyd as Toxie. It was perfect.

I shot a ton of other photos of Lloyd as well and I was also given a tour of Troma’s Long Island City office. There is so much weird stuff in there and I got to take photos of it all.  After the photo shoot there was a casting for Troma’s newest film, a remake of their classic “Class of Nuke ’em High”. My friend Zac was actually the first person to audition and he ended up getting completely naked and vomiting fake green puke all over the place. Zac is not a skinny man and the whole thing was quite horrific in the best possible way. I decided you need to see all of these out takes so I am providing a wonderful gallery of pictures of Lloyd, the Troma offices and a naked fat man puking. Be warned it is very not safe for work.

So yeah, read Camille’s article and then click right here to see all my outtakes from the Lloyd Kaufman Village Voice shoot and my tour of Troma Studios!

Last Friday I had my first solo NYC photo show at Mishka’s flagship store 350 Broadway in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. I showed a bunch of 35mm New York street photography under the name “These New York Streets”.  The opening party was a lot of fun and packed all night, partly because of my amazing work, but probably mostly because there was 10 bottles of Sailor Jerry rum and 10 cases of PBR. I have learned that free booze is the only way you can get people to look at art which is why MOMA always has big lines for their “Keg Stand Thursdays” events.

I showed 11 20″x30″ photos at the event and you can see them all by clicking right here. The first 11 photos were in the show, the next two were outtakes that I printed but didn’t show and the rest of the images are street photos that didn’t make the cut. If you are interested in buying any of the (first 13) photos they are available in an open edition at 20″x30″ for $250 and a limited edition (#’d out of 10) at 11″x14″ for $100. There is also a super limited print done with artist Lamour Supreme that is only $25.  All of this stuff is available by contacting me or going over to 350 Broadway and picking it up there. The exhibit is up for the next six weeks if you want to check it out for yourself.

Normally I am the media but with this event I got reported on so I figured I would share a couple links for you. The New York Observer wrote a nice article on the show (although there were some errors in it), Mishka posted a bunch of pictures from the show on their blog (although oddly none of me) and the Village Voice ran a slide show of my street photography pictures.

I also should thank everyone for coming out, thanks to Mishka for letting me put some photos on their walls and thanks to Sailor Jerry and PBR for providing a lot of free booze. Also thanks to Lamour Supreme for painting on one of my photos. We also had an after party at The Flat after the show so I should thank them and Sailor Jerry again for the open bar and DJ Furoshe for DJing the event for pretty much free. Thanks everyone! Now go look at some pictures.

Click here to see all the pictures from the opening of These New York Streets at Mishka’s 350 Broadway.

And click here to see a bunch of my New York City street photography.

Ps. I did an amazingly half assed job taking these photos cause it was my own damn event. Also there are some NSFW shots in here cause… well… it’s my own damn event.

Last spring a guy named Jeremy Rocklin approached me about doing an episode of his web series New York Lives on me.  They are great little documentaries about interesting New Yorkers or places/events in New York. I loved his work so I agreed to do it.

I sat down with him months ago and he interviewed me for about an hour about the website and my life and all that stuff… but he needed more footage.  He wanted footage of me shooting a girl and shooting a party.  I had an idea to shoot a girl naked in Chinatown but people kept flaking on me.  Finally Veruca James was visiting from Chicago and was really into the idea. We went down there with Jeremy and shot some crazy stuff all over lower Manhattan. You may have seen the photos here.  A few days later I brought him to Lit Lounge and he shot a little b-roll footage of me shooting the Thursday party there NC-17. It was pretty dark and he didn’t need much stuff so that was quick and easy.  Finally he came with me to Red Rocket tattoo where my friend Betty Rose gave SB from Rocky Business his first tattoo… it just happened to be of my logo.

Jeremy got great stuff and sent me the video. I thought it was great, but in the months he was working on it I ended up losing 30 lbs.  I hated seeing how fat I was in all the footage. It seriously was awful. Plus I had this horrible mustache as you will see in the film because I played “mustache guy” on an episode of this HBO show Girls that will be out in January.  There wasn’t that much footage of me talking in the documentary, it was just my voice over photos and video, so I begged Jeremy to reshoot part of the interview.  Luckily for my ego he agreed and we shot a little bit more footage at my apartment a couple weeks ago.

He finally put it all together and created this madness that is 7 minutes about my life. This thing is perhaps the first in the series. It focuses on the girls mostly but he want to do future episodes about my new punk band and my Miami Dolphins club. I hope it happens cause shooting this was a lot of fun.  Just wanted to thank my friends who helped out on this… Veruca, SB and Betty Rose. And thanks to Ballpoint Pens and The Death Set for the music!

Now check out the documentary! And be warned… it’s NSFW.

Now that all the SXSW stuff is behind me I plan on taking a break from photos updates this weekend. I thought this would be the perfect time to post about this interview I did with a website called The Set Up.  I do interviews from time to time (I am actually doing another interview on Sunday…) but I thought I would feature this one because it features some questions I get asked a lot.

The Set Up is a geek interview blog where they ask people from different industries what sort of tools they use to get the job done. I think the site mostly is about tech people and what sort of software and hardware they use but I got to talk about all the camera equipment that I use as well as being self effacing about what sort of computer stuff I am dealing with.

I did the interview a couple months ago so a few things have changed. The main thing is that I have been using a program called Photo Mechanic that I love to do the basic edit of my photos. I don’t mean editing the photos themselves but editing out the bad shots, thumbnailing them and sticking my logo on them. That stuff used to take forever and now it is a breeze thanks to Photo Mechanic. Then again as you will read in the interview my old process was a fucking mess.

Anyway, I might not update for the rest of the weekend. My Alma Mater VCU is playing their first Final Four game in history tonight and I plan on watching that and doing nothing else today. Tomorrow I have an interview and a photo shoot and then if VCU wins tonight I am going to get on a bus and get my ass to Richmond to watch the Rams play in the national championship game on the VCU campus and hope for a riot that I can photograph…

So click here to read my interview with The Set Up!

On the last night of South By Southwest a mini riot broke out at the not-so-secret Death From Above 1979 reunion show. It was the last thing I shot at SXSW and it seemed like something Vice would want.  Before I went to Austin they told me they wanted SXSW coverage but they didn’t want bands or music stuff. They wanted weirder more interesting non traditional stuff and this seemed right up their alley. They ran a bunch of my photos and a story about the whole thing last week.  I am just going to reprint the whole thing here so I have an archive of it on my site plus there are some images I loved that Vice didn’t run that I will.  Check out the original article here on Vice or just keep reading…

During the last time slot of the last night of South By Southwest, Death From Above 1979 reunited for the first time in several years. They were playing the Undocumented Management showcase at Beauty Bar in Austin. I knew I couldn’t make it there in time for their 1am set, but the owners of Beauty Bar NYC were in town and I knew they could sneak me in the show, even if just for the last few songs. I texted Jessie Keeler from DFA about trying to make it and his foreboding response was simply “Gonna be a shitshow.” He was not wrong.

By the time I made it down to Beauty Bar, DFA was well into their set. I was coming down an alley that leads to the back stage at Beauty Bar and I could hear them playing. When I got closer, I saw hundreds of people just standing outside pressed up to the gate trying to watch the show. These kids were clapping and dancing and moshing and having a party in the alley behind the club. As I tried to push my way towards the gate, someone suddenly tried to climb the fence. There were security guards waiting for him so he didn’t get very far, but as he climbed a few other people attempted the same move and the fence came down. Several off duty cops were standing on the other side of the fence armed with TASERs and pepper spray. I was about 10 feet away at this point and I could hear the sound of TASERs zapping the shit out of people. I got closer despite the SXSW staff trying to keep me away.

I pulled out my camera and started shooting. So did 100 other people armed with camera phones and video cameras. Unfortunately, I had been shooting for more than 12 hours and my flash batteries were almost completely kicked. I fired off a few underexposed shots of people getting hit in the face with pepper spray and sparked by the stun gun type TASERs the off-duties were using liberally. I saw at least one zapper get shot randomly into the crowd, but the sound was a more effective deterrent than anything else. Meanwhile the band just kept playing.

Eventually the fence was put back up and held in place by Beauty Bar staff and security guards. The kids outside were even more riled up by this point and just started moshing in the alley. After a few minutes two uniformed cops finally showed up, a bit taken aback at the shit show they had just walked in to. As the police moved through the crowd people cursed and threw shit at them. The two officers warned us that crowd control horses were not far behind.

When the riot cops on horseback came through the alley, the DFA fans just moved out of the way. People started throwing empty beer cans at the horses, which caused them to start spinning around and freaking out. I can’t imagine the Austin Mounties get a lot of practice. As the horses passed, everyone in the alley just went back to the fence and started dancing.

By this point I had given up on my flash and started shooting portraits of the crowd, the horses, and the police with natural light. The cops finally got DFA to stop playing long enough to tell everyone that the band couldn’t finish their set until the alley party dispersed. Then the cops sort of huddled in front of the gate for a while as the crowd stood their ground waiting to see what would happen. Then, out of nowhere, the cops left, the show started back up, and the crowd started dancing like the police were never there.

When they finished playing everyone left peacefully and without any problems. The only trace of the mini-riot/party was a few beer cans and the thousands of camera phone pictures and videos that were already on YouTube by the time I got back to my hotel.

Click here to see all the photos from The Death From Above 1979 riot at Beauty Bar Austin.

Once in a while I like to dump some links and scans and stuff on you guys to let you know what I have been doing outside of this website.  I always post this stuff on my Twitter and my Tumblr and such but here is a round up of some published work and recent press.  It’s not really that exiting but everyone is going on vacation tomorrow and I haven’t shot anything too exciting in the last few days so I guess now is as good time as any to do this post. Oh and yeah, I am going to DC to visit the family for Thanksgiving so if shit is slow over the next couple of days cut a guy some slack. Damn!

Here is a link to The L Magazine’s write up of me and some pictures of mine in their Best Of NYC Nightlife Photographers.

So here are just a bunch of things I have shot in the last few weeks for the Village Voice:

• Tiny Furniture Premiere After Party
• Exxxotica Convention (NSFW)
• This Is Music
• National Book Awards

Here are a few Dos & Don’ts that I have shot for Vice Magazine:

• Don’t
• Do
• Don’t
• Do
• Don’t (NSFW)
• Do
• Don’t (NSFW)
• Do
• Don’t (NSFW)

The NY Daily News wrote up this Harry Potter street art stunt at the Union Square Subway stop. My DBB sticker just happened to be in the shot. Both The Village Voice and Gothamist wrote it up as well so here are some serious viral points for my sticker.

And lastly I shot a bunch of photos for Ryan Keely’s Porn Star Sex Life workshop a while ago. Evidently they ended up in Penthouse Magazine which is always pretty funny. I think I was voted most likely to be working for Penthouse in high school so it’s always good to end up in there… even if it’s not a real shoot or anything.  Oh, and if you want to see all the pics from the Porn Star Sex Life workshop the are right here.

And if I don’t see you guys tomorrow… have a fantastic Thanksgiving!

The cover story on the Gathering of the Juggalos that I worked on came out in yesterday’s Village Voice. If you live in NYC you should pick one up. It is a pretty amazing adventure tale written by my editor Camille Dodero after we spent four days in the middle of nowhere surrounded by killer clowns. It’s 6000 words so it takes commitment to read it, but it is very enjoyable.  I have been working for VillageVoice.com for two years but this is the first time that I have worked on a big cover story for print like this. Even though I didn’t shoot the actual cover I do have nine pictures in the article which is pretty substantial. Anyway if you don’t live in NYC and can’t pick up a paper you should click here to read the story online.

I mentioned it in my last post but I feel my guest blog spot deserves a bigger mention.  Starting last week and continuing until mid next week I am blogging for Late Night Feelings aka FLNGS. FLNGS is an erotic photography group blog that features a ton of photographers who I love and admire. They also have had some absolutely amazing guest bloggers in the past including a number or friends of mine and I am pretty happy that I am getting the chance to blog for them.

I decided that this would be the perfect opportunity to show some of my never before seen 35mm work.  Over the last two and a half years I have been carrying a point and shoot Yashica T4 everywhere I go with me. I am sure if you have seen me out you have noticed it on my hip. It might not be the greatest fashion accessory but I have shot several hundred rolls of film that I haven’t published. This work is very different from my party work. It is a lot more personal and stylistically very different. I am sure you can see me in the work, but I think you guys might be suprised by it if you haven’t seen any of my more fine art oriented work.

Now obviously the work on FLNGS is very Not Safe For Work so I can’t post much on the front page, but below I am going to post a few examples of some of the more tame stuff I will be showing over there. So check out the few shots below then click here to check out my guest blogs over on FLNGS.  You can also read my bio over there if you want a laugh.

I hope you dig the work. Let me know what you think. Thanks!